In the News

Why is it so hard for people in the anti-war movement to hold two ideas in their heads at the same time? Can't we want to end the war in Afghanistan and at the same time practice solidarity with its victims?

By Victor Mallet in Madrid and Peter Spiegel in Brussels, Financial Times, June 5, 2012

Spain has made its most explicit call to date for European institutions to recapitalise the country’s banks. amid concerns about its own ability to raise the billions of euros needed on sovereign bond markets.

Cristóbal Montoro, budget minister in the centre-right government, sent jitters through financial markets on Tuesday when he admitted that the high perceived risk of Spanish sovereign debt meant Spain “does not have the door to the markets open”[....]

The Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to cut its presence in Iraq to less than half of wartime levels, according to U.S. officials familiar with the planning, a move that is largely a result of challenges the CIA faces operating in a country that no longer welcomes a major U.S. presence.

Under the plans being considered, the CIA's presence in Iraq would be reduced to 40% of wartime levels, when Baghdad was the largest CIA station in the world with more than 700 agency personnel, officials said.

The CIA had already begun to pull back in Iraq since the height of the war, officials said. But the drawdown, coming six months after the departure of American military forces, would be significant [....]

The correct takeaway from this, however, is not “herp derp, women can’t do math.” It’s that the social costs of sexism are really, really high. If, despite massive cultural and institutional barriers, significant numbers of women were making important contributions at the highest level all along, but denied credit, that would obviously be grossly unfair to the women in question. But it would be sort of a wash from the perspective of overall social utility: The allocation of credit is different, but society still gets the benefit of the brightest women’s contributions. The grimmer alternative is not that the wrong people get the credit, but that important innovations just don’t happen because the pool of brainpower available to tackle important social goals is needlessly halved—the potential female counterparts of Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn never got the opportunity to accelerate the progress of the Internet because, at the time, hostile institutions froze them out, or antiquated norms of femininity deterred them from obtaining STEM educations in the first place. That’s a much, much bigger loss.

It’s natural that we want to look for inspiration to the members of marginalized groups whose incredible achievements required surmounting equally incredible obstacles, but overselling the success stories can also subtly reinforce the complacent view that Genius Always Finds A Way, regardless of social arrangements, even if it’s not properly recognized until much later. The depressing reality is that it very often doesn’t. And the deeper the roots of the inequality—the more culturally entrenched it is—the longer we should expect inequality in achievement to persist even when the most obvious formal barriers have been eliminated. It’s worth pausing to belatedly recognize the neglected heroines who did overcome the odds, but insisting that there’s been some hidden parity of contributions all along actually seems to risk underselling the gravity of the collective harm we’ve done ourselves. Sexism has consequences—and it has left all of us vastly worse off.

[Dean Baker] The main story of the apparent weakness of the last three months is the apparent strength of the prior three months. In other words, the story is still the weather. The relatively strong growth in jobs and other measures that was the result of a relatively mild winter meant that we would see weaker growth than normal in the spring.

If companies hire people because demand picked up in February rather than April, then they will not be doing as much hiring in the spring as would ordinarily be the case. The same story applies to consumer demand. Families that took advantage of unusually mild winter weather to buy a car in January or February don't go out and buy another one in the spring.

... On the one hand, it seems clear that the recent downward forces on prices will continue: negotiations with Iran will drag on as the US administration is determined to postpone any attack till after the election .... Spain's difficulties rescuing Bankia .... the tension between the Greek populace and international authorities ... Spanish and Greek unemployment continue to soar ... the continued inability of the polarized US political system to come to grips with major challenges - particularly the upcoming expiry of the Bush tax cuts and the automatic spending cuts that will be triggered around the end of this year. ... These kinds of considerations suggest that the downward break in oil prices could continue quite a lot further.

On the other hand, with Brent falling below $100, we are now testing the current level of OPEC's tolerance for lower prices. In 2009/2010 they were willing to settle for $70ish without reducing production. However, since that time they - particularly Saudi Arabia - have signed up for extensive domestic stimulus programs to appease the population following the Arab Spring. Thus they almost certainly need somewhat higher prices now. Mr Al-Naimi has been quoted on numerous occasions in the last year saying that $100 was a fair price for oil. Will they cut oil production now, on that rule? Or wait till it crosses $90 or $80? I'd be surprised if it took $80 to get them to act.

Thus I would expect that if the downward movement were to continue, it would not be too much longer before it would trigger a Saudi production cut.

[It's one thing for prices to increase due to economic growth, quite another for them to be increased despite economic doldrums.]

Until the emergence of Occupy Wall Street, a disturbing absence marked American political life. The nation’s economic miseries continued, with unemployment high and home sales stagnant or dropping. The gap between the wealthiest Americans and their fellow citizens yawned wider than at any time since the 1920s. Yet, except for the big demonstrations and energetic recall campaigns that roiled Wisconsin, critics of big business, big finance, and government cutbacks had failed to organize a serious protest movement against the people and policies that bungled the United States into recession in the first place. What happened to the anti-corporate Left?

During their surge to prominence last fall, the Occupiers seemed to render that question moot. They set up camp in scores of cities and thrust the problem of economic inequality onto front pages, home pages, and into the center of political debate. It was as if, in a startling rewrite of Beckett’s great play, Vladimir and Estragon had not been waiting in vain: Godot decided to show up after all. Alas, by late winter (as I write) few of the occupations still exist, the non-left media have mostly lost interest, and activists appear divided and dispirited about what should come next.

And we still have to account for the long silence of the activist Left on the intersecting issues of corporate power and stagnant working and living standards.

Hell, it is now almost 16 years of incredible shots since he turned pro in August of 1996.

Hell 19 years if you count the U.S. Open Amateur championships that Tiger won.

Nicklaus won two Amateur championships.

Tiger is in the second to last group to finish 16.

Sabatini is tied with Tiger at the moment and dumps his tee shot into the far right bunker.

Sabatini blew it from the trap and now Tiger is leading at 8 under.

Tiger might pull this out.

In this tournament, a tournament played on one of Nichlaus' 18, there is something at issue here.

Tiger can tie Nicklaus for total PGA tournament wins.

73 is the number. Only Snead with 82 leads the pack.

Everybody underlines how important 'Majors' are when discussing the ubermenches of golf.

But to me this is a big deal.

Now 'world wide'; whatever that means gives the following stats:

Nicklaus: 115 wins

Woods: 130 wins

Player: 162 wins

Snead: 152 wins

(I have not counted senior tournaments won)

Snead leads the pack in the PGA stats with 82 PGA Tournament Wins.

I will do a blog sometime on stats but you must recall that Nicklaus won his last major tournament

when he was 46. (The Masters) And Tiger, however screwed up his body is (which might launch another post) is only 36)

I bring this stat up because in the next 14 years we might see wonders.

I bring this stat up because Butch Harmon was on Charles this week and announced that Tiger would never be able to win 5 more Majors. (I could get into an argument that Tiger only needs four more majors but I will most probably be dead by the time this run is over!)

By Elisabeth Rosenthal, M.D., New York Times Sunday Review, June 2/3, 2012

[....] why do Americans, nearly alone on the planet, remain so devoted to the ritual physical exam and to all of these tests, and why do so many doctors continue to provide them? Indeed, the last decade has seen a boom in what hospitals and health care companies call “executive physicals” — batteries of screening exams for apparently healthy people, purporting to ferret out hidden disease with the zeal of Homeland Security officers searching for terrorists.

In 1979, a Canadian government task force officially recommended giving up the standard head-to-toe annual physical based on studies showing it to be “nonspecific,” “inefficient” and “potentially harmful,” replacing it instead with a small number of periodic screening tests, which depend in part on a patient’s risk factors for illness. Faced with such evidence, I have not gotten an annual physical since around the time I finished my medical training in 1989. I respect my doctors, but I see them only when I’m sick. I religiously follow schedules for the limited number of screening tests recommended for women my age [....]

Also see,

if you're in the mood for more on money-driven "preventive" medicine in the USA (warning: venturing into the comments section is especially depressing and not because it's the usual internet blog commentariat, but lots of medical professionals arguing on topic):

BAGHDAD — Despite sectarian bombings and political gridlock, Iraq’s crude oil production is soaring, providing a singular bright spot for the nation’s future and relief for global oil markets as the West tightens sanctions on Iranian exports.

The increased flow and vital port improvements have produced a 20 percent jump in exports this year [....]

Energy analysts say that the Iraqi boom — coupled with increased production in Saudi Arabia and the near total recovery of Libya’s oil industry — should cushion oil markets from price spikes and give the international community additional leverage over Iran when new sanctions take effect in July [....]

BEIJING — China has arrested an employee of the Ministry of State Security on suspicion of spying for the United States, Hong Kong media reported Friday [....]

The employee is said to be a 38-year-old man who was a secretary to Qiu Jin, the deputy minister of state security. He is alleged to have been recruited and trained by the CIA and was arrested sometime this year [....]

The espionage charges appear to be entangled in the power struggle raging within the Communist Party since the beginning of the year [....]

The alleged spy was not identified in the reports, which named only Qiu, who is believed to be a close ally of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. In February, Qiu personally handled the politically explosive case of Wang Lijun, a police official from Chongqing who had sought asylum in a U.S. Consulate in western China [....]

The UN's special rapporteur on torture has made a formal approach to the US government over a special-needs school near Boston that inflicts electric shocks on autistic children as a form of behavioural control.

Juan Mendez has told the Guardian that he has opened discussions with the US mission to the UN in Geneva as a first step towards investigating the school.

The rapporteur plans to contact the US state department and has the option of reporting the matter to the UN human rights council [....]

The Rabbinical Assembly is what I like to refer to as the collective bargaining representative for rabbis affiliated with Judaism's conservative movement. But it also the ultimate authority on interpretation of Jewish law in the conservative movement (my personal affiliation). Notwithstanding the express and unambiguous language of what much of the world refers to as the Old Testament, the RA has unanimously approved same-sex marriages. Indeed, some of you may have had the experience of fasting on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism, and returning to synagogue for the final services late in the day, tired, hungry and thirsty, only to hear the Torah reader begin afternoon services with a litany of all kinds of sexual no-nos, including same-sex stuff (and all kinds of other "stuff").

How can that be? The answer is that there is more to Judaism and most religions than can be gleaned from literal parsing of what is found in the Bible. When it comes to religious beliefs, I believe that all of us, believers and non-believers, must take care not to do what too many "Islamaphobes", for example, are doing to foment hatred of Islam by referring to this or that provision of the Quran.

The researchers studied about 1,500 skulls that dated from the mid-1800s through the 1980s. They noticed that the skulls gradually became larger, taller, and narrower. As a result, faces have become longer.

"The surprising thing is the skull size increase has not been documented in modern Americans," researcher Dr. Richard Jantz told The Huffington Post. "We might have suspected that that was happening but this documents it ... The shape of the skull has also changed rather dramatically. In fact, shape change has been more dramatic than size change.”

[Kind of brings a whole new meaning to the term narrow minded, don't it.]

As Greece prepares for a June 17 election that may determine whether it exits the euro, the attention has shifted to Spain, where the problems are different—and much larger. Greece’s troubles stem from excessive government borrowing; Spain suffers from a property bust and its banks remain crippled by an estimated €184 billion ($230 billion) in troubled real estate assets. The government is struggling to devise a rescue plan as the country grapples with a deepening recession and 24 percent unemployment.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insists his country doesn’t need a bailout, though investors say otherwise. The cost of insuring Spanish sovereign debt rose to a record high on May 30, and yields on Spain’s 10-year bonds climbed close to the 7 percent level that led Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to seek bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Considering that Spain’s economy is almost twice as big as those of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland combined, the country poses the biggest test for European authorities yet [....]

Capital flight from Spain has doubled to a new record and the country has demanded the European Central Bank recapitalize its teetering financial system, warning that the alternative is a broader bailout that could rock the European economy [....]

WASHINGTON — From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised [....]

In the 1990s, the term “digital divide” emerged to describe technology’s haves and have-nots. It inspired many efforts to get the latest computing tools into the hands of all Americans, particularly low-income families.

Those efforts have indeed shrunk the divide. But they have created an unintended side effect [.....]

As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.

This growing time-wasting gap, policy makers and researchers say, is more a reflection of the ability of parents to monitor and limit how children use technology than of access to it [.....]

The judge presiding over the sentencing in an international criminal court near The Hague said Mr. Taylor had been found guilty of “aiding and abetting, as well as planning, some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history” and that the lengthy prison term underscored his position at the top of government during that period.

“Leadership must be carried out by example by the prosecution of crimes, not the commission of crimes,” the judge, Richard Lussick, said in a statement read before the court [....]

Julian Assange, founder of the anti- secrecy website WikiLeaks, lost a U.K. Supreme Court appeal to block his extradition to Sweden to face rape claims after questioning a technicality of his detainment 18 months ago. His lawyer said she may challenge the decision.

The court today rejected Assange's argument that the Swedish prosecutor who investigated the sexual assault claims and issued a European arrest warrant for him in 2010 wasn't a "judicial authority" under European Union law.

Assange's lawyer Dinah Rose said she may seek to re-open the matter by challenging the court's handling of the case. She claimed the 5-2 decision in London was unfairly based on the court's interpretation of a "precise point" of law that wasn't argued during a hearing in February. If she pursues that route, it would be the first such challenge of a U.K. top court ruling.

HONG KONG — Four years ago, the BYD Company promoted the electric battery technology it was developing as a way to help China transform the automobile. No less an investor than Warren E. Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, boasted about the company’s prospects and bought a 10 percent stake.

But recently, nothing has gone right. BYD’s stock is down 43 percent from its high on Feb. 8 as investors and analysts have questioned whether the company has the technology or the manufacturing quality to be an enduring competitor in the Chinese market.

[....] BYD now accepts that the future of the auto industry is more likely to lie in hybrid gasoline-electric cars, a technology in which it lags Japanese manufacturers, and not in all-electric cars, which still face issues of battery range and recharging time. And on Sunday, new questions arose about the company’s battery technology when [....]

[....] Last month, Jared Kushner announced the Administration’s support for the bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, writing that the six million Americans in local and federal prisons are included among “the forgotten men and women” that Trump vowed to fight for during his Presidential campaign.. “Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it,” Trump promised. The House passed the bill this week.

President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision.

“I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said to Kim in a letter released by the White House on Thursday morning.

The summit had been planned for June 12 in Singapore.

In his letter, Trump held open the possibility that the two leaders could meet at a later date to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which Trump has been pushing.

"President Trump’s unprecedented meeting on Monday with the FBI director and deputy attorney general regarding a case in which he is directly involved may turn out to be the defining moment of his presidency and for his party. Bob Bauer at the Lawfare blog writes:

North Korea is threatening to reconsider Kim Jong Un’s participation in a summit with President Trump next month, saying it is up to the United States to decide whether it wants to “meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

Stacey Abrams just one the Democratic Gubernatorial race in Georgia by roughly 3:1. She could become the first black and first female Governor of Georgia. It looks like the Republican candidate will be chosen after a runoff election since no one reached 50% of the vote.

Evans argued that Democrats could win by appealing to moderate Republicans. Abrams argued that the party needs to focus on disaffected Democrats. Abrams won. Abrams even won Democrats in northern Georgia with small minority populations.

Kendrick Lamar brought on a white fan onstage to rap along with his song “m.A.A.D. City”. When the fan rapped the song as written, repeating the N-word three times, Lamar halted the performance. He told the fan that she could not use the word. She apologized. He gave her a second chance. She almost rapped the word again, the crowd was not having it. Lamar ushered the fan off stage and continued the performance.

The audience responded negatively to the white fan using the words on stage. She lost the crowd with the first use of the words. Some did point out that she was just rapping the words as written.